Falkirk manager John McGlynn remains “wary” of struggling Rangers as he expressed sympathy for under-pressure counterpart Russell Martin.
The second-bottom Bairns trail Rangers – who have one league win in six games – by just two points before Sunday’s meeting at the Falkirk Stadium.
“You can’t hide from the fact that Rangers are not in a place that they want to be, but put them down at your peril,” McGlynn said.
“There’s no way we’ll be taking it lightly at all. I’m looking for a response to the game last week.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if it was Rangers or whoever we’re going to be playing tomorrow. On Sunday, we’d be looking for a response from the players. That’s my main theme here.”
Falkirk have impressed at times in their return to the top flight, but they were well beaten 3-0 by Hearts last weekend at Tynecastle.
“It’s probably the first time we’ve let ourselves down,” the Bairns manager said. “However, I do understand that we wouldn’t have been the only one that day [to get well beaten], Hearts were in a particularly good place, they were ready for whoever on that day.
“They’d just been to Ibrox and won for the first time in 14 years, sitting proudly on top of the league. They’d had a lot of time to prepare for the game, and we had a short time to prepare, and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were good, we were a little off it.”
Rangers were beaten 2-1 by Sturm Graz in the Europa League on Thursday, a sixth defeat in 16 games for boss Martin, who continues to face abuse from his own supporters.
“Of course you [feel sympathy for him], because you’re a human being,” McGlynn said.
“You do feel for him. There’s abuse and there’s going too far. I’ve seen with another manager [Stuart Kettlewell at Motherwell] last season, he came away from it because of that.
“Sometimes you get guys saying to you, ‘I don’t know how you do it’. But we love the game. It’s a huge part of it. I have a lot of sympathy because sometimes it’s going too far. You can’t be doing that type of thing. You shouldn’t be [having to get] escorted to training and such.”
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